Reinwald, Christophine (1757-1847)

Reinwald, Christophine

PAINTER (GERMANY)

BORN 4 Sep 1757, Marbach am Neckar, Baden-Württemberg - DIED 31 Aug 1847, Meiningen, Thüringen
BIRTH NAME Schiller, Elisabetha Christophine Friederike
GRAVE LOCATION Meiningen, Thüringen: Parkfriedhof, Am Steinernen Berg

Christophine Schiller was the first child of the officer and court gardener Johann Kaspar Schiller and his wife Elisabeth Dorothea. Two years later her brother Friedrich Schiller was born and four more children would follow. Christophine and Friedrich were close in their childhood. She was among the first to recognise his talent. At the time the family lived in Ludwigsburg she knew the painter Ludovike Simanowiz and she tried her hand at painting and drawing herself. They became close friends and a portrait of Christophine by Ludovike from 1789 survives.

Through Friedrich, in 1784 she met Wilhelm Reinwald, a librarian from Meiningen. They married in 1786 in Gerlingen. Initially Friedrich was not enthousiastic about the marriage, but later he visited them repeatedly in Meiningen. The marriage remained childless. In Meiningen Christophine gave drawing lessons to girls from that city.

After her husband died in 1815 she left Meiningen and went to her sister in Mockmühl but she found it hard to restore old family ties. After a trip to Switzerland with her friend Luise Heim she returned to Meiningen in 1822. There she lived in Steinernen Haus and from 1832 in Heimschen Haus, where she is remembered by a plaque. She died in 1847 in Meiningen.

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